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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26962102">"Like Stars Are Falling"</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/killingg_eve/pseuds/killingg_eve'>killingg_eve</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Killing Eve (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>3x08, Bridge Scene, F/F, Tender - Freeform, soft</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:47:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,908</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26962102</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/killingg_eve/pseuds/killingg_eve</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Soft, tender, bridge scene (3x08).<br/>--<br/>Definitely a dedication to Azra's <a href="https://twitter.com/azahuhh/status/1314297551265374225">beautiful art</a> and to a commenter under the art (@villanevekill on twitter) who said (to me) "I need a fanfic where they have their first kiss and it's soft and sweet and perfect."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>78</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>"Like Stars Are Falling"</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you to Azra (for existing and making beautiful things, obviously) and to Villanevekill for making a request I couldn't get out of my head.<br/>I wrote the beginning parts half-asleep, and it suited it well.<br/>Also, I can't stop thinking of Jai Wolf's song "Starlight," so maybe go listen to that after? <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9VoDwy-3Lc">(YouTube Link)</a></p><p> </p><p>Note: Had to re-upload because I broke this website and my post didn't show up on my account, nearly 24 hours later. Super weird.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eighteen. It takes Eighteen steps for Villanelle and Eve to meet back in the middle of the bridge.</p><p> </p><p>Villanelle’s eyes are glossy; any more words she could offer are gone. The giggling and reminiscing about the future and the past are left behind with the people they’d both been, only a few minutes ago.</p><p> </p><p>Eve looks at her with sympathy; they will still walk away from one another. This is not a change of mind. That’s not what the turning around and the eighteen steps were about.</p><p> </p><p>The yearning became its own entity, its own driving force; magnetic pull. To ignore its beckoning would be disrespectful to whatever we call that which is greater than us individuals: past lives, karmic ties, perhaps the red string of fate. Something pulled on them and begged them to look one more time, to embrace one more time.</p><p> </p><p>Eve keeps her tears from cascading as she reaches for Villanelle’s face with a slow stretch, with a hand that threatens to tremble because of the way that she’s pushing towards something difficult and pulling away from something else difficult, at the same time—like the tension of pulling a rubber band from both sides. Her hand lands on Villanelle’s cheek and the sensation is immediately calming. How is her face hot with tears and cold from the nighttime air, at the same time?</p><p> </p><p>Villanelle can’t help it when her muscles pull her face into a relieved smile. She gasps a little and drops her gaze to the ground, then back up at Eve. <em>I am here, this is happening</em> is the subconscious meaning. And it feels so good. Her hand feels warm—strong, yet soft.</p><p> </p><p>Eve starts to brush her hand over a slightly tear-stained cheek and two things happen: Eve’s expression melts in the way that might happen when someone reaches towards an infant and provide a soothing hand to a tiny, needy being. Villanelle smile falls with a quiet, yet rushed exhale because this gesture is something she’s never received, before, and she’s overtaken by the feeling. <em>(If her mother had provided this type of affection—if she had brushed the tomato juice away and softly brushed fingers over her cheek—Oksana would be entirely changed.)</em></p><p> </p><p>Villanelle’s eyes pool with so many tears that her eyesight is blurry, and her mouth makes the shape of the name that she is too stunned to speak: “Eve,” she mouths like a whisper, but it’s not audible.</p><p> </p><p>Eve catches fresh tears as they fall onto her thumb instead of onto Villanelle’s tired, yet still-soft cheek.</p><p> </p><p>Eve interprets the shadow of sadness that hides under the relief of feeling loved. It radiates through eye contact and touch, alone. She moves her hand to the back of Villanelle’s neck and pulls, guiding their foreheads together.</p><p> </p><p>And she sighs with relief against Villanelle’s mouth, and Villanelle sighs with relief against her, a beat later.</p><p> </p><p>And they sigh against each other, melting into each other with the warm feeling of foreheads pressed together. The energy they hold swirls into a pool of dark and light and everything that is <em>them</em>, that has ever been them. The sharp pain of a knife and the impossible sting of a bullet is there, but so is the way that Villanelle brushed her fingers against Eve’s hairline, <em>so is</em> the way that Eve leaned up into a frantic kiss on a moving bus.</p><p> </p><p>Eve adjusts her grip on Villanelle’s neck, wanting to <em>sooth</em> down but <em>pull</em> closer, and her other hand comes up to rest on Villanelle’s shoulder. Her shoulder is strong, and something about the gesture feels like the ballroom, all over again, if either of them were to sway.</p><p> </p><p>Villanelle lets herself be held under Eve’s firm, stable, secure hands. And she closes her eyes at the sensation of two, stationary hands that feel like they are pulling her closer, and somehow pushing her back down to reality, all at the same time. Her arms circle around Eve’s back and close around her because Eve is an anchor, in this moment. Eve is delivering something foreign and nice, and Eve came back to the middle of the bridge for her, and she is so overwhelmed that all she can do is breathe Eve in and hope to be held in this place for as long as possible.</p><p> </p><p>Eve wants to kiss her—not like the bus, not like something impulsive and disastrous. She hopes for it to feel like a promise and a seal and a message: <em>this is real, we were here</em>. She doesn’t want to call it a parting gift, although that’s what it resembles the most.</p><p> </p><p>Villanelle is frozen in time, still drinking in the feeling of a warm forehead and firm hands and the slow, steady breathes of Eve. The smell of Eve. The bare essence of Eve.</p><p> </p><p>Eve’s eyes are open, but she knows Villanelle’s are closed and that Villanelle is lost to concentrating on the feelings.</p><p> </p><p>She whispers the name like it’s a foreign, beautiful term.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Villanelle</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>Her eyes open and she doesn’t notice the way that her arms tug tighter and closer around Eve.</p><p> </p><p>Her Russian accent slinks through a whispered, desperate plea.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Don’t leave,</em>” she whispers in a prayer against Eve’s face, hoping Eve won’t lift away and leave her forehead and her shoulder to feel so cold and empty. And then walk away, again.</p><p> </p><p>But that isn’t what this is about. Not yet, at least.</p><p> </p><p>Eve dives into her and tilts her head, catching Villanelle’s lips in a kiss. One that is slow, and then a few more, not minding that Villanelle is still, beneath her, because she is doing the bare minimum of parting her lips and accepting the falling kisses.</p><p> </p><p>Villanelle feels full and begs any of her muscles to move past the surprising and warm feelings of it so she can kiss back, so she won’t regret anything, later.</p><p> </p><p>How could she describe the feeling—like stars are falling? Like warmth speckles into a growing flame in her chest, then radiates throughout her whole body, till the whole of her feels warm?</p><p> </p><p>She falters under the warmth and then hopes that she can springboard off of Eve and find her way back to knowing how all of this works. She’s done it a thousand times, but something about Eve and her soft lips and her grounding sense of kind lovingness—it’s <em>Eve</em> in front of her, kissing her, swallowing her. Swallowing each ache of her bleeding heart. Probably unaware of the way it hurts and feels good, all at once.</p><p> </p><p>She wills herself to let her eyes flutter open and she releases a hand from Eve’s back because it now belongs under Eve’s chin. And she tilts her head so that she and Eve will be like perfect halves. And she finds herself finally catching a kiss instead of letting it fall somewhere inside of her.</p><p> </p><p>And then another and another, synchronized perfectly.</p><p> </p><p>But it’s so much less about consuming the other person and imposing some type of a spell on them. Villanelle realizes that’s what past kisses were like. With Eve, it’s about catching and intentionally turning the tenderness around to give it back.</p><p> </p><p>Eve’s kisses have always been intentional; that’s not new. What <em>is</em> new is Villanelle against her, and what it’s like to give to someone who needs the giving, instead of giving to someone who takes lazily and puts it on a shelf with the rest of the collection.</p><p> </p><p>Villanelle’s face is so soft, and her lips are so soft and blushed and full. And as Eve gives and takes, and gives and takes, and gives and takes against her, she realizes everything about this is new and different.</p><p> </p><p>A new Villanelle feels present—surely Oksana, like meeting Oksana for the first time. Seeing how Oksana will be stunned under warm affection, but will eventually, <em>still</em> find it within herself to give (somehow, even after everything—and isn’t that beautiful?). </p><p> </p><p>And Eve, herself, feels different. Because the softness of the other woman brings gentle bursts of warmth throughout all of her skin, like she must be blushing, or like the feeling of sipping at a hot cup of tea.</p><p> </p><p>The giving. It’s the giving. It’s reaching into Oksana’s chest and rearranging the strings of her heart until she feels full again, calm again. And Eve would pull her closer and tighter—if she could and if there was any room left between them—if it meant she could make that type of a repair.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>But all good things come to an end, and if she feels Oksana’s fingertips beneath her chin for much longer (grazing so gently) . . . if she continues to feel the softness and the pliable-ness of <em>Oksana</em> instead of the sharp threat of <em>Villanelle</em> . . . she would melt into the other woman and never let go and never take strides towards something new and normal, which she so much needs.</p><p> </p><p>So, with the next give and the next take, Eve pulls away and looks to scan Oksana’s eyes—but Oksana stares at Eve’s heart center and doesn’t meet her gaze.</p><p> </p><p>Oksana’s breaths are slow and even, but her cheeks are still rosy with stardust.</p><p> </p><p>Her face melts to distress upon realizing that Eve will pick her warm hands up and walk away, again</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>. . . <em>Walk away, again</em>.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>She meets Eve’s eyes but drowns in the softness of the warm brown.</p><p> </p><p>She tries to make the shape of the name, again, but it becomes only a shell; a cut-off whimper.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Ee—v . . .</em>”</p><p> </p><p>Eve catches the broken name with both hands by smoothing each one over her cheeks, one last time.</p><p> </p><p>She begs for eye contact, silently, noticing Oksana’s avoidant gaze—and all of the <em>hurting</em>, underneath. All of the <em>wishes to hold on and keep</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Eve’s expression melts to sympathy when a shivering Oksana dares to look up. And she smiles gently; assuring.</p><p> </p><p>She looks back and forth between Oksana’s eyes and settles on something you say when a child falls and scrapes their knee.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay. You’re okay.”</p><p> </p><p>And she smiles wider and her eyes pool with tears.</p><p> </p><p>Oksana nods and digests the reassurance, even though the senses of defeat and longing threaten to creep in, right underneath. Her arms reach around Eve for a hug, and it’s automatic—she didn’t decide, only fell forward into it.</p><p> </p><p>She presses her mouth to Eve’s shoulder and closes her eyes tight, once more, inhaling the scent of Eve to file away and remember, later.</p><p> </p><p>Eve allows the hug. Needs the hug. Allows her tears to fall onto the shoulder of the mustard jacket while hoping she has it within herself to peel herself away, one more time.</p><p> </p><p>And then it happens.</p><p> </p><p>They release each other fully, feeling the coolness and exposedness of all the places they’d forgotten they were even touching. And the warmness is gone, except in their chests.</p><p> </p><p>They look at one another—up and down, capturing the pieces and the full impression like a photograph.</p><p> </p><p>And they synchronize without their knowledge, as they take a deep breath and sigh out. Preparing.</p><p> </p><p>And they catch themselves smiling at each other a little bit with sparkling eyes (or did one of them smile, and the other was a mirror?).</p><p> </p><p>And they turn and walk away, and the lingering warmth in their chests is exactly enough to keep them from stopping and looking back, this time.</p><p> </p>
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